Using a big lollipop, I created a layer of a mixture of warm colours that indicates the bright, shining nebula. In September, I was given a lollipop made of red, pink and white spirals of lollies, which I knew I wouldn’t eat (as a daughter of a dentist, and as a healthy-eater). So I decided to crack it and melt it to form a sheet of lollies that has complex and delicate relationship between movements of colours.The lollipop was pretty solid and I found out that it wouldn’t be fragmented even if I dropped it on the hard floor from high. I finally made it in small pieces after trying to cut it using a knife and made a huge mess in the kitchen.
Then I placed fragments of the late lollipop on a piece of cooking sheet on a frying pan. With medium-high heat, I started melting those pieces of lollipop. The first thing I noticed was that the lollies with artificial colours and artificial scent ( it had sweet scent like strawberry ) smells so bad when heated! I had a fan on, but the smell was making me feel sick and choked. The second thing I realised was that lollies started bubbling and became a thick liquid. The clear borderline between different colours of lollies was disappeared and the gradational tonal variation was formed.
After I put the frying pan away from heat and cooled it down, I placed the melted lollies on the cooking sheet ( on a plate) inside the fridge to cool it down. The lollies layer didn’t take long time to be solidified. I was fascinated by the flowing patterns of organic lines that constructed the mysterious atmosphere on the surface of lollies. Afterwards, I accidentally cracked the layer into three pieces but the sharp and strong edge created by cracking it, contrasted with the feminine sense of the lollies. I decided to take photographs of them using a digital camera and with iPhone. I wasn’t good at setting up proper lighting and so pictures in the first attempt didn’t turn out beautiful. When I was taking photos on iPhone, I came up with an idea of holding it in front of the light and allowing the light to come through the piece. ,this technique clarified the intensity and the transparency of different sections of the lollies. They reminded me of the nebula in the universe.
I enjoyed playing with an ordinary lollipop and turning it into a unique material for art experiment!
Saran Kim | Blog 